


sweet and stubborn

by tsunderestorm



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Movie: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: Even after everything, Suzaku cannot give up.
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	sweet and stubborn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catboyronster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catboyronster/gifts).



> I asked for prompts on my [twitter](twitter.com/tsunderestorm). The prompts for this were:
> 
> -"You love me as if I deserve you."  
> -"I'm not giving up on you, do you hear me? Even when I'm down to my last breath - I swear it."

“You’re just going to leave?” Suzaku demands. Lelouch is packing a backpack; clothes disappearing in neatly folded piles into its depths. The same way Lelouch does everything: methodical, planned, down to an art. “You’re going to leave m- _us_?”

 _Us_. There was supposed to be an us, always. Lelouch, Nunnally, Suzaku. In another place, in a different life, there are three kids against the world. Those are someone else’s dreams, now.

Still, he demands, “You’re going to leave Nunnally?” as a last resort. Salt in the wound, a blade in the back, and it hurts Suzaku as much to say it as it does for Lelouch to hear it. Suzaku has long since been an expert in hurting. 

Lelouch’s shoulders sag for just an instant. There, in the vacancy of bravado, there is tenderness. Something raw, something that hasn’t healed yet, or maybe never will. Suzaku wants to dig his fingers into it, into Lelouch, and drag out everything he’s still hiding. In the spaces between breaths where his mask falters, the reaction that he thinks Suzaku isn’t quick enough to catch is as visible as blood on white silk. Lelouch inhales, shaky, before he rights himself. “I no longer belong in your world,” he says with a finality Suzaku can’t stand. Does he think that answer will satisfy him?

Suzaku sits down on the bed, hangs his head between his legs. “I love you, Lelouch,” he says, because there is nothing else to say but the truth. He’d like to say this is his true last-ditch option, an ace in the hole, something that might make him stay. 

Lelouch laughs, and there is no cruelty or condescension held within it. Quietly, he places a tightly rolled sleeping bar on top of the backpack and sighs, “Suzaku, please. You love me as if I deserve you.”

“Deserve you?” Suzaku asks, frantic, frenzied. “What else do I deserve? _Who_ do I deserve? For all the things I’ve done? That _we’ve_ done? What the hell else do we deserve but each other?”

Lelouch turns with the elegance of a dancer. Suzaku wants to put him in a music box: beautiful, revered, kept. No more requiems, no more dirges, just a lullaby, dreamy and nostalgic. Then, Lelouch can’t say things that cut and sting and bleed, like “You need to give up on me, Suzaku. The Lelouch you knew… is dead.”

“I’m not giving up on you, do you hear me, Lelouch?” Suzaku roars, jumping to his feet and crowding against him, hands fisted in his shirt. He wants to let him go. He wants to shake sense into him. He wants to shove him far away. 

He wants to kiss him until they bleed. “Even when I’m down to my last breath. I swear it,” he says, because it’s true. Because love has always won over hate, and the world is cold without Lelouch’s warmth. 

The irony is that there will be no last breath. Lelouch’s geass command ensures that. The simple _live_ that had saved Suzaku’s life and taken it in one fell swoop. Still, the sentiment is there - sweet and stubborn, Suzaku at his finest. 

Lelouch leaves in the morning.


End file.
